It started as a joke. From Day 1, jurors in Peterson’s double-murder trial were fond of saying to one another: “We don’t want to be an O.J. Simpson jury!” an ex-panel member told me.

Simpson, of course, is tied neck and neck with Peterson for the title of Most-Hated Human in California. Unlike Scott, O.J. skipped away a free man from charges he butchered his ex-wife and her friend in Los Angeles a decade ago. And he left evidence.

Apparently the O.J. fiasco was seldom far from the minds of Peterson’s jurors. This comes from Justin Falconer, who was the first of three jurors kicked off the panel.

“One juror said he heard from a co-worker – ‘We are worse than an O.J. jury,’ ” Falconer, 29, told me yesterday from his home in Kansas City, where he moved after receiving death threats for voicing his opinion that there was reasonable doubt of Peterson’s guilt.

“It became an ongoing joke throughout the trial,” he said – “People are going to hate us” if Peterson walks.

“It’s scary,” he said about Friday’s guilty verdicts, capable of putting Scott to death.

“This trial was not tried in the courtroom. It was tried on Nancy Grace [the TV commentator and professional Scott-hater].”

Falconer retains his reasonable doubts.

Scott “was a liar. He had an affair. What is that? There’s no motive,” he said.

“He’s got a beautiful wife who’s pregnant with his child. He’s got a mistress he’s banging on the side when he’s in Fresno on business. He and Laci are about to inherit a ton of money from Laci’s grandmother. Why screw that up?

“Whether he did it or not, I don’t know. I don’t think the prosecutor proved it.

“This is not justice. It’s wrong for Scott, and it’s wrong for the Rochas.”